One major part of my studio practice is maintaining a sketchbook. Sketchbooks are an important tool to release and digest the everyday world for my being. I write inside of them, collect found images from magazines, draw and doodle, work through beginning stages of paintings, collage special memories from daily adventures, etc. I do not have a method for going about them- every book I create has different intentions and different processes of making inside. My only rule is to not limit myself- if a page is ugly I let it be ugly.
I have boxes of old sketchbooks and journals in my dad's barn collecting dust, but they hold too much power to throw away or let burn. I revisit them when I need to remind myself of who I am and how far I have come within my studio practice. The images above are from a sketchbook I started at the end of 2021. I had purchased some old National Geographic magazines for fifty cents from a local book store in Cleveland, Ohio when I was visiting home at the end of last year. When I am feeling uninspired or have taken time off from making and want to start creating again, collaging found images is a way for my spirit to relate to the everyday world while using process as tool. Cutting these found images from where they originate and glueing them into my sketchbook for absorption is a tool I use to start to build an image vocabulary. Whether or not I revisit these collages and use them in later work is relative to my being in the world. It is okay if they are never used again and exist only in my sketchbook. The process of simply making them is enough for me. I let the images I have found speak for themselves. They communicate metaphors visually through their own image indexes that I can only dream of achieving through my own work.
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Abby JoThis blog belongs to KALE. It serves as a collection of thoughts and reflections inside the everyday happenings of being in the world for Lilyungkale. Archive
April 2024
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